The Vienna paradox : a memoir / by Marjorie Perloff.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Perloff, Marjorie.

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Perloff, Marjorie.

Vienna.

English teachers--United States--Biography.

English teachers.

Families.

Austrian Americans.

Jewish families.

United States.

Austria--Vienna.

Austria.

Critics--United States--Biography.

Critics.

Perloff, Marjorie--Homes and haunts--Austria--Vienna.

Jewish refugees--United States--Biography.

Jewish refugees.

Perloff, Marjorie--Childhood and youth.

Jewish families--Austria--Vienna.

Jewish families--United States.

Austrian Americans--Biography.

Vienna (Austria)--Biography.

Vienna (Austria).

Perloff, Marjorie--Family.

Genre:

Biographies.

Autobiographies.

Physical Description:

xviii, 283 pages : illustrations ; 21 cm

Place of Publication:

New York : New Directions Books, 2004.

Summary:

The Vienna Paradox is Marjorie Perloff's memoir of growing up in pre-World War II Vienna, her escape to America in 1938 with her upper-middle-class, highly cultured, and largely assimilated Jewish family, and her self-transformation from the German-speaking Gabriele Mintz to the English-speaking Marjorie--who also happened to be the granddaughter of Richard Schüller, the Austrian foreign minister under Chancellor Dollfuss and a special delegate to the League of Nations. Compelling as the story is, this is hardly a conventional memoir. Rather, it interweaves biographical anecdote and family history with speculations on the historical development of early 20th-century Vienna as it was experienced by her parents' generation, and how the loss of their "high" culture affected the lives of these cultivated refugees in a democratic United States that was, and remains, deeply suspicious of perceived "elitism." This is, in other words, an intellectual memoir, both elegant and heartfelt, by one of America's leading critics, a narrative in which literary and philosophical reference is as central as the personal.

Contents:

Prologue: Seductive Vienna 1

Chapter 1 Anschluss: March 1938 33

Chapter 2 "German by the Grace of Goethe" 73

Chapter 3 Losing Everything But One's Accent: The Refugee Years 121

Chapter 4 Kultur, Kitsch, and Ethical Culture 163

Chapter 5 "To Turn into a Different Person" 203

Appendix Family Tree 259.

Notes:

"A New Directions Book"

Includes bibliographical references (pages 265-274) and index.

ISBN:

0811215725

0811215717

OCLC:

54007133